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July 2004
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July 1st 2004
From Consciousness -- Step Back and Witness
Step back from your experience. Observe your thoughts, your reactions, and everything that happens, as if through the eyes of a compassionate but uninvolved witness. This is what it means to pay attention.
No amount of effort is needed. No amount of effort will be successful.
And yet, through mindful attention to the background of awareness inherent within the present moment, awakening will inevitably dawn upon you.
In that Instant you will delight in the Reality of who and what you have been all along.
Metta Zetty
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July 2nd 2004
From Consciousness -- Witness-Consciousness.
All you need is to keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace.
The real exists and is of the nature of witness-consciousness. Of course it is beyond the witness, but to enter it one must first realise the state of pure witnessing....
The witness is the reflection of the real in all its purity.... The state of witnessing is full of power.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
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July 3rd 2004
From Consciousness -- Simply Look and Know
There are no conditions to fulfil. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be given up. Just look and remember, whatever you perceive is not you, nor yours.
It is there in the field of consciousness, but you are not the field and its contents, nor even the knower of the field.
It is your idea that you have to do things that entangle you in results of your efforts -- the motive, the desire, the failure to achieve, the sense of frustration -- all this holds you back.
Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
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July 4th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Source and Heart of All
You need not get at it (Enlightenment), for you 'are' it. It will get at you, if you give it a chance.
Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly slip into its own.
Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realisation that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you.
With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
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July 5th 2004
From Consciousness -- Watch Yourself
Discover all you are not. Body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not being, this or that -- nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you.
You must watch yourself continuously -- particularly your mind -- moment by moment, missing nothing.
This witnessing is essential for the separation of the self from the not-self ... be aware of that state which is only, simply being, without being this or that or the other.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
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July 6th 2004
From Consciousness -- Moment to Moment Awareness
Awareness is from moment to moment, it is not the cumulative effect of self-protective memories.
Awareness is not determination nor is it the action of will. Awareness is the complete and unconditional surrender to what is, without rationalization, without the division of the observer and the observed.
As awareness is non-accumulative, non-residual, it does not build up the self, positively or negatively.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
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July 7th 2004
From Consciousness -- Just Be Aware
Awareness is ever in the present and so, non-identifying and non-repetitive; nor does it create habit.
Just be aware; that is all what you have to do, without condemning, without forcing, without trying to change what you are aware of.
Then you will see that it is like a tide that is coming in. You cannot prevent the tide from coming in, build a wall, or do what you will, it will come with tremendous energy.
In the same way, if you are aware choicelessly, the whole field of consciousness begins to unfold.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
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July 8th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Voice in Your Head
Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can.
Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years -- be there as the witnessing presence.
When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say do not judge ... for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door.
You wíll soon realize: there is the voice, and here 'I am' listening to it, watching it. This I am realisation, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.
Eckhart Tolle
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July 9th 2004
From Consciousness -- Your Authentic Unborn Self.
All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.
In that state, even my desire to become free or enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future.
So don't seek to become free of desire or "achieve" enlightenment. Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind.
Eckhart Tolle
Being aware is the key, nothing else matters, slowly slowly an understanding starts growing, a witness arises and this witness is the bud of a new liberating life experience, the miracle that transforms, the miracle that heals, the miracle that reveals your authentic unborn Self.
PSS
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July 10th 2004
From Consciousness -- Love and Wisdom Flow
As long as you perceive that anyone is holding you back you have not taken full responsibility for your own liberation.
Liberation means that you stand free of making demands on others and life to make you happy.
When you discover yourself to be nothing but Freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy.
It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you Are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
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July 11th 2004
From Consciousness -- Surrender Self Importance
The biggest challenge for most spiritual seekers is to surrender their self importance, and see the emptiness of their own personal story.
It is your personal story that you need to awaken from in order to be free.
To give up being either ignorant or enlightened is the mark of liberation and allows you to treat others as your Self.
What I am describing is the birth of true Love.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
---
July 12th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Inner Alignment With Now
In most cases, we cannot begin to understand what role a seemingly senseless event may have within the totality of the cosmos, but recognizing its inevitability within the vastness of the whole can be the beginning of an inner acceptance of what is and thus a realignment with the wholeness of life.
True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at this moment.
This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering.
Eckhart Tolle
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July 13th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Impersonality of Relationships
The revelation of perfect unity reveals the true impersonality of all relationships. The ego always interprets "impersonal" as meaning cold, distant, and aloof. However, "impersonal" simply means not personal, or void of a separate me and a separate you.
The mind cannot comprehend of a relationship without separate entities. Much as a character in a dream cannot comprehend that all other dream characters are simply manifestations of the same dreamer.
Yet when the dreamer awakens, he instantly comprehends that the entire dream, and all the characters in it, were none other than projections of his own self.
In the dream there is the appearance of separate, personal entities in relationship, but upon awakening one comprehends the impersonal (non-separate) Self that is the source of all appearances.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
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July 14th 2004
From Consciousness -- There Is No Other
To deeply inquire into the question "Who is another?" can lead to the direct experience that the other is one’s own Self -- that in fact there is no other. However, I have seen that for most seekers, even this direct experiential revelation is not enough to transform the painfully personal ways they relate.
To come to this profound transformation requires a very deep investigation into the implications inherent within the experiential revelation that there is no other.
It is in the daily living of these implications that most seekers fail. Why? Because, fundamentally, most people want to remain separate and in control.
Simply put, most people want to keep dreaming that they are special, unique, and separate, more than they want to wake up to the perfect unity of an Unknown which leaves no room from any separation from the whole.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
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July 15th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Implications of Unicity
Consciousness is all there is.
Ramesh Balsedar
There is a powerful tendency in most spiritual seekers to avoid probing deeply into the implications inherent within profound spiritual experience and revelation, because these implications are always threatening to the sense of a separate self, or ego.
It is the implications inherent within profound spiritual revelation (that Consciousness is all there is) that demand the transformation of the apparent individual.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
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July 16th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Play of the One Self
Inherent within the revelation of perfect unity (that Consciousness is all there is) is the realization that there is no 'other'.
The implications of this realization reveal that in order to manifest that unity in the relative world, one must renounce the dream of being a separate self seeking to obtain anything through relationship with another.
Indeed, personal relationship appears to happen in the relative world, but in reality, all appearances simply arise as temporary manifestations of a unified whole.
In the relative world these appearances are in relationship, but not as separate entities. Rather, they are the play of the one Self projecting itself as apparent entities in relationship to one another.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
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July 17th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Realization of What You ARE
As long as you identify yourself with the projection of separateness, you will continue to deny that you are the Source of all projections.
When you truly and absolutely awaken to this fact, and comprehend the overwhelming implications inherent within this awakening, you will continually experience that all apparently personal relationships are in truth nothing other than the play of your Self.
To realize that the personal me is an illusion born of false identification with the body, thoughts, and emotions, brings a profound sense of freedom.
This is fundamentally the realization of emptiness, of what you are not. But contained within the realization of emptiness (formlessness) is also the realization of what you ARE.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
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July 18th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Love Without Boundaries
In the most absolute sense you ARE this conscious emptiness which is the source of all appearances (existence). But you are the appearance as well. Not just one part of the appearance called "me", but all of it, the entire whole.
This is the challenge, to let your view get this vast. To let your view get so vast that your identity disappears. Then you realize that there is no other, and there is nothing personal going on.
Contrary to the way the ego will view such a realization, it is in reality the birth of true love. A love which is free of all boundaries and fear.
To the ego such uncontaminated love is unbearable in its intimacy. When there is no clear separating boundaries and nothing to gain the ego becomes disinterested, angry, or frightened.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
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July 19th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Dance of the SELF.
In a love where there is no other there is nowhere to hide, no one to control, and nothing to gain. It is the coming together of appearances in the beautiful dance of the SELF called Love.
To the seeker who is sincere, an experiential glimpse of this possibility is not enough. If you are sincere you will find it within yourself to go far beyond any glimpse.
You will find within your Self the courage to let go of the known and dive deeply into the Unknown heart of a mystery that calls you only to itself.
Adyashanti (Steven Gray)
---
July 20th 2004
From Consciousness -- Peace From Deep Loss.
Whenever any kind of deep loss occurs in your life -- such as loss of possessions, your home, a close relationship; or loss of your reputation, job, or physical abilities -- something inside you dies. You feel diminished in your sense of who you are. There may also be a certain disorientation. "Without this.., who am I?"
When a form that you had unconsciously identified with as part of yourself leaves you or dissolves, that can be extremely painful. It leaves a hole, so to speak, in the fabric of your existence.
When this happens, don't deny or ignore the pain or the sadness that you feel. Accept that it is there. Beware of your mind's tendency to construct a story around that loss in which you are assigned the role of victim. Fear, anger, resentment, or self- pity are the emotions that go with that role.
Then become aware of what lies behind those emotions as well as behind the mind-made story: that hole, that empty space. Can you face and accept that strange sense of emptiness? If you do, you may find that it is no longer a fearful place. You may be surprised to find peace emanating from it.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 21st 2004
From Consciousness -- The Shell Cracks Open
Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no.
If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now.
Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 22nd 2004
From Consciousness -- Allow a Feeling to Be
Unhappiness needs a mind-made "me" with a story, a conceptual identity. It needs time -- past and future. When you remove time from your unhappiness, what is it that remains? The "such- ness" of this moment remains.
It may be a feeling of heaviness, agitation, tightness, anger, or even nausea. That is not unhappiness, and it is not a personal problem.
There is nothing personal in human pain. It is simply an intense pressure or intense energy that you feel somewhere in the body. By giving it attention, the feeling doesn't turn into thinking and thus reactivate the unhappy "me."
See what happens when you just allow a feeling to be.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 23rd 2004
From Consciousness -- The Ego Needs Enemies
Much suffering, much unhappiness arises when you take each thought that comes into your head for the truth.
Situations don't make you unhappy. They may cause you physical pain, but they don't make you unhappy. Your thoughts make you unhappy. Your interpretations, the stories you tell yourself make you unhappy.
"The thoughts I am thinking right now are making me unhappy." This realization breaks your unconscious identification with those thoughts -- "What a miserable day." -- "He didn't have the decency to return my call." -- "She let me down."
Little stories we tell ourselves and others, often in the form of complaints. They are unconsciously designed to enhance our always deficient sense of self through being "right" and making something or someone "wrong."
Being "right" places us in a position of imagined superiority and so strengthens our false sense of self, the ego. This also creates some kind of enemy: yes, the ego needs enemies to define its boundary, and even the weather can serve that function.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 24th 2004
From Consciousness -- Stay Totally With What Is
Through habitual mental judgment and emotional contraction, you have a personalized, reactive relationship to people and events in your life. These are all forms of self-created suffering, but they are not recognized as such because to the ego they are satisfying. The ego enhances itself through reactivity and conflict.
How simple life would be without those stories.
It is raining.
He did not call.
I was there. She was not.
When you are suffering, when you are unhappy, stay totally with what is Now. Unhappiness or problems cannot survive in the Now.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 25th 2004
From Consciousness -- Naming and Labeling
Suffering begins when you mentally name or label a situation in some way as undesirable or bad. You resent a situation and that resentment personalizes it and brings in a reactive "me."
Naming and labeling are habitual, but that habit can be broken. Start practicing "not naming" with small things.
If you miss the plane, drop and break a cup, or slip and fall in the mud, can you refrain from naming the experience as bad or painful? Can you immediately accept the "isness" of that moment?
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 26th 2004
From Consciousness -- Beyond Good and Bad
Naming something as bad causes an emotional contraction within you. When you let it be, without naming it, enormous power is suddenly available to you.
The contraction cuts you off from that power, the power of life itself.
Go beyond good and bad by refraining from mentally labeling anything as good or bad. When you go beyond the habitual naming, the power of the universe moves through you.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 27th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Inner "Yes"
When you are in a nonreactive relationship to experiences, what you would have called "bad" before often turns around quickly, if not immediately, through the power of life itself.
Watch what happens when you don't name an experience as "bad" and instead bring an inner acceptance, an inner "yes" to it, and so let it be as it is.
Whatever your life situation is, how would you feel if you completely accepted it as it is -- right Now?
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 28th 2004
From Consciousness -- Creating Suffering For Yoursel
There are many subtle and not so subtle forms of suffering that are so "normal" they are usually not recognized as suffering and may even feel satisfying to the ego -- irritation, impatience, anger, having an issue with something or someone, resentment, complaining.
You can learn to recognize all those forms of suffering as they happen and know: at this moment, I am creating suffering for myself.
If you are in the habit of creating suffering for yourself, you are probably creating suffering for others too. These unconscious mind patterns tend to come to an end simply by making them conscious, by becoming aware of them as they happen.
You cannot be conscious and create suffering for yourself.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 29th 2004
From Consciousness -- Resist Not Evil
This is the miracle: behind every condition, person, or situation that appears "bad" or "evil" lies concealed a deeper good.
That deeper good reveals itself to you -- both within and without -- through inner acceptance of what is.
"Resist not evil" is one of the highest truths of humanity.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 30th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Dialogue:
Accept what is.
I truly cannot. I'm agitated and angry about this.
Then accept what is.
Accept that I'm agitated and angry? Accept that I cannot accept?
Yes. Bring acceptance into your nonacceptance. Bring surrender into your nonsurrender. Then see what happens.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
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July 31st 2004
From Consciousness -- Put a Space Between You and the Pain,
Chronic physical pain is one of the harshest teachers you can have. "Resistance is futile" is its teaching.
Nothing could be more normal than an unwillingness to suffer. Yet if you can let go of that unwillingness, and instead allow the pain to be there, you may notice a subtle inner separation from the pain, a space between you and the pain, as it were. This means to suffer consciously, willingly. When you suffer consciously, physical pain can quickly burn up the ego in you, since ego consists largely of resistance. The same is true of extreme physical disability.
You "offer up your suffering to God" is another way of saying this.
Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks
